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“Okay. Sure.”
The contents of her thoughts remained unshared as the two of them briskly took one more roundabout path back to Tess’s front door. Whatever they were, even before they deposited the final presents, she’d already buried them deep away underneath her usual cool demeanor. For nearly the next hour, during which there wasn’t much in the way of help that Tess required, he spent much of it wondering about what it was that had disrupted her poise.
He wouldn’t receive an answer to that question until the following year.
Chapter Twenty
One on Each Side
When Anna and Avril arrived, having carpooled in the latter’s vehicle, it was nearly four-thirty. Mild cloud coverage had slinked in by then, robbing them of the hour or so of sunlight they were supposed to have left. With a few efforts that Tess had made while he and Avril were shopping the day before, she’d freed at least some of her lights from their snowy burial. Resplendent blues, reds, and golds shone brightly wherever they could, and they weren’t alone. Over the past few days, including just a little while ago, many in the neighborhood had endeavored to ensure that when Christmas Eve turned to Christmas Day, the dark would have to look elsewhere for a place to settle. Chief among them was Gary, who had managed to salvage most of his house adornments, even if his yard ornaments remained almost totally buried.
As captivating a sight as all those houses might have been, right now, there was something else that fully captured Liam’s attention.
An impact upon a small object, which had reconnected an electrical circuit, which had allowed a sonorous sound to toll throughout the house. Immediately, it called Liam up from the couch, where he’d spent the past fifteen minutes relaxing, and shoved him toward the front door. He made it there quicker than usual, though he stopped with his hand just inches away from the doorknob. Instead of pointing forward, his eyes lifted to the object hovering a few feet above his head.
The doorbell rang again. Tess’s voice called his name from the kitchen, asking if he could get the door. She and Victoria were both there, hidden from sight as they completed the final toils required for the evening—at least in food-related issues.
“Yeah, I got it,” he called, still staring at the mistletoe. Well, maybe Avril wouldn’t notice it.
As if. Avril Knight was a step away from being prescient regarding such matters. It was as if the universe notified her whenever an opportunity to sow chaos and embarrassment entered her sphere of influence. Honestly, her parents should have named her Eris.
Because the second the door opened, revealing the two breathtaking women standing on the other side, only Anna smiled and greeted him. With her paranormal awareness intact, Avril immediately homed in on the mistletoe above him. A mischievous, nearly villainous grin followed.
Therefore, he only had a few moments to examine their outfits for the evening. That was all the time needed for his heart to bolt from a steady rhythm to a frantic sprint.
Similarly to Tess and Victoria, each woman had claimed dominion over two disparate concepts. To no one’s surprise, that meant Avril had gone casual, and Anna had selected formal.
Casual indeed. Avril had shown up in grey leggings, perfect for outlining her firm, lithe legs, a green cropped sweater, where white reindeer frolicked around the torso, and her typical auburn ponytail. He could see a few inches of her midriff, and a chance arrived for more than a peek as she stretched her arms over her head—intentionally, he knew—as she stepped inside. Completing her outfit, she’d elected to put her hair up in a ponytail and wear a headband. An antlered headband. A few bells clung to each one, and they jingled as she stepped forward.
Oh. And there was one more thing. She had on a scarf. And as their eyes met, Avril swiftly invited him to reminisce about last night with the grin she struck him with.
Just a couple of steps behind, in utter disharmony with her roommate’s getup, Anna looked ready to attend an extravagant dinner party. She’d given an exquisite red sweater dress a blessed opportunity to adhere to her curvaceous body, and he saw more of her skin now than he ever had. The sweater dress’s shoulder-less nature saw to that, as did the glimpse of her breasts that it provided. It only made it three-quarters of the way to her knees, as well.
Already, withinsecondsof Avril and Anna’s arrival, he knew there would be no way for him to heed Victoria’s earlier advice. Avril would have every opportunity to take as many potshots against him as she wanted to. He’d lost the war in the opening salvo.
Avril knew it as well as he did. Her Cheshire grin remained plastered as she entered Tess’s house. He wasn’t fast enough to withdraw a step, which allowed her to hook her arm into his and rob him of any chance to retreat. After that, her eyes lazily, as if they’d only just found the verdant object hanging overhead, tilted upward.
“Hey, Anna, get a look,” she cooed. “Someone was waiting to ambush us.”
Anna’s eyes, an unusual but strikingly beautiful mint green, innocently obeyed the directive given to them. As soon as they alighted upon the mistletoe, rosy hues collected under her fair skin. As was her vexatious roommate’s objective, of course.
Anna was as classically beautiful as they came. She cut an elegant profile, with high cheekbones set into a fair complexion, refined and unblemished—and the most alluring set of lips that Liam had ever laid eyes on. Her raven-black tresses cascaded in waves to her slender shoulders tonight, though they slipped away as she angled her attention upward.
Somewhat similar to Victoria, Anna did not often smile. However, while Victoria put forth an impassive show of hazardous ice and chill, Anna was warm and polite, like a fireplace whose warmth you were just outside of the optimal range. In a sense, she smiled readily and often. Yet, even from their first meeting, he’d sensed that her real smile was locked away behind several layers of protective politeness. And he’d been right, as he’d recently gained the privilege of being one of the few to see her smile joyously—and what a sight it had been.
Unfortunately, he’d also seen the puffy redness and tiny sniffles that followed a long spill of tears. Her father had caused those, and much like Trent Alden, who he could now confirm he would never like, he was already confident that he’d never have much in the way of kind words to espouse about Arnold Royce.
Today, the threat of tears was low, though the price for that safety came in the form of an astronomically high likelihood of embarrassment. And already was the first dose delivered.
Staring up at the mistletoe, blushing lightly, the heiress to Royce Railroads had lost her footing even before she’d finished stepping into Tess’s home. Interestingly, she was the only one of the two carrying gifts. Given how snug Avril’s outfit was, he didn’t think she was hiding her “homemade” gift to him anywhere under her clothes. Unless he was about to get Polar Express’d in a little while when she handed him one of the bells on her antlers.
“Come on, you know what that is, how it works,” the mischievous redhead said, grinning. Meanwhile, she held his arm tightly, breasts pressing into it.Thatpart of things, Liam didn’t mind so much.
Even had she wanted to mimic Avril’s ploy and take up his other arm, Anna's gift-laden arms prevented such an opportunity. However, to no one’s surprise, a slender frown framed her beautiful features as Avril teased her.
“We’ve just arrived, Avril,” she huffed. “Can you not start this immediately?”
“I am who I am,” Avril said unapologetically, not knowing she’d just stolen a line from Victoria. “Besides, it’sChristmas Eve.We’re at the one little slice of the year where mistletoes come out. Try being a little festive and frolicky for once. Liam went to all this work to set up an ambush for the two of us.”
